The Bharatiya Janata Party has released its first list of 160 candidates for the Gujarat Assembly elections today i.e. on Thursday. The saffron party has fielded Gujarat Chief Minister Bhupendra Patel from his parliamentary constituency Ghatlodia.
According to a PTI report, the party has removed a large number of sitting MLAs this time, while some prominent leaders have got tickets to contest the Gujarat elections which are due in early December in two phases.
The party has fielded Hardik Patel, the face of the Patidar movement in the 2017 assembly elections, who later quit the Congress to join the BJP from Viramgam constituency.
Cricketer Ravindra Jadeja’s wife Rivaba Jadeja’s name is also in the list. She will contest from Jamnagar North seat in Gujarat.
Releasing the list here today, Union Minister Bhupendra Yadav said that the BJP has replaced 38 existing members, claiming that most of the replacements have been made with the consent of the existing members, PTI reported.
The party announced its candidates for 84 of the 89 seats where polling will be held in the first phase on December 1 and for 76 of the 93 candidates in the second phase on December 5.
Union ministers Yadav and Mansukh Mandaviya along with Gujarat BJP president CR Patil attended a press conference here as Yadav named candidates shortlisted by the party’s central election committee in their meeting on Wednesday.
Yadav said that apart from 14 women, the list includes 69 sitting MLAs and 13 and 24 members from Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes respectively.
He said that many senior leaders of the state, including former Chief Minister Vijay Rupani and former Deputy Chief Minister Nitin Patel, have opted to contest the elections and have written letters to the party leadership in this regard.
Patil expressed confidence that the BJP would break its previous record of seat and vote share in these elections.
Apart from Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union ministers Amit Shah and Rajnath Singh, other CEC members including party national president JP Nadda also attended the meeting to finalize the candidates.
for counting of votes gujarat assembly election Will be on 8th December.
(with PTI inputs)
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